Monday, May 30, 2016

One of the most ridiculous justifications that Drumpf's borg followers incessantly give for backing him is probably the one that most deeply sickens and infuriates The Gadfly -- namely that Drumpf cares about the working men and women of this country.

Whenever The Gadfly hears some mindless, drooling tool smugly blathering on and on about how Drumpf is going to be good for workers, The Gadfly wistfully yearns for the ability to wish those fucking brain-dead idiots in to the cornfield, ala the kid in the 1961 Twilight Zone episode.

No - but honestly - The Gadfly does yearn for that ability. Because it really does require one to have to make an incredibly mighty leap of faith over the cavernous abyss that is chock full of evidence demonstrating that Drumpf is anything but a friend of workers, and in fact is a cowardly, treacherous conniver who would sell this country's middle class down the river if it financially benefited himself.

What's that dear reader? Where is The Gadfly's evidence of such a claim? Well, since you asked . . . to wit:

Supreme Court asked to rule on Trump casino bankruptcy

By David G. Savage

MAY 29, 2016, 8:00 AM | REPORTING FROM WASHINGTON

The Supreme Court is being asked to take up a bankruptcy dispute involving the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City and to decide whether to restore the health and pension benefits of more than 1,000 casino workers.

At issue is a conflict between labor laws that call for preserving collective bargaining agreements and bankruptcy laws that allow a judge to reorganize a business to keep it in operation.

“This is about how a bankruptcy was used to transfer value from working people to the super-rich,” said Richard G. McCracken, general counsel for Unite Here, the hotel and casino workers’ union that appealed to the high court.

Billionaire Carl Icahn stepped in to buy the casino – founded by Donald Trump – after it filed for bankruptcy in 2014.

As the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals said in January, Trump’s “plan of reorganization was contingent on the rejection of the collective bargaining agreement,” also known as the CBA, with the union. Icahn promised a “capital infusion of $100 million” to keep the casino in operation, but “only if the CBA and tax relief contingencies are achieved.”

If you are in any way puzzled about what this legal kerfluffle is all about, allow The Gadfly to summarize it for you in layman's terms.

Drumpf and his "magnificent" business acumen somehow managed to run a casino into bankruptcy (oh - and not his first, but actually his fourth) and so he went begging hat in hand to a billionaire buddy of his to save his short-fingered, vulgarian ass from the financial shambles he had made for himself. And that deal pretty much went like this -- that in order for Drumpf to seal the deal for the salvation of his larcenous ass, he worked it out with one of his fellow billionaire buddies that the collectively bargained agreement for the health and pension benefits of Drumpf's workers, something which had already been agreed upon way prior to the bankruptcy (because that is what "agreements" do) between Drumpf and the worker's union, the bargained benefits and pension "agreement" between Drumpf and his workers must be declared null and void.

And if that is still murky to you -- let's simplify it. Say for instance you buy a new car. You signed a 5 year contract with the car dealer which says that as long as you continue making your payments every month, that car is yours to do whatever the hell you want with it and to enjoy it's benefits. In the 5th year of your contract, you've made all of your payments on time and only have a couple more months to go before you outright own it. And make no mistake about it - that car is invaluable to you and your family - it gets you to work, it helps with running family affairs, and provides some family leisure value as well. Then, one day, you hear that the car dealership where you bought the car has filed for bankruptcy because, as it turns out, the owner was a shitty, incompetent, possibly shady businessman who owed the mafia a lot of money. The next day, the car dealership owner sends a tow truck to your house in the middle of the night to haul your beloved car away, because he claims that "technically" it's still his because you still owe money on it and besides -- he needs it back to help pay off his "creditors".

To summarize - the car dealer gets the car back, which he uses to pay off his bankster friends, thus allowing the car dealer to skate away only to resume his unprincipled business activities another day, and you, the poor sucker, get stuck now having to buy bus tokens for your transportation needs.

Get it now kids?

There's your "self-made" success story, your "phenomenally astute" businessman, your wonderful and great friend of the American worker for you -- The Gadfly presents to you the "yoooogely" glorious, President wannabe -- Donald J. Drumpf.

The Gadfly will repeat himself -- if you are of the belief that Drumpf is going to improve your economic lot in life you are truly, madly, deeply fucking delusional -- and The Gadfly will say that to your face whether you be foe, friend, or family member -- and will say it to you every day and twice or more on Sunday.

Monday, May 23, 2016

Bernie Sanders Says Debbie Wasserman Schultz Will Be Gone From DNC If He’s President

05/21/2016 04:46 pm ET | Updated 15 hours ago

Sam Levine

Associate Politics Editor, The Huffington Post

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) went all in on Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the head of the Democratic National Committee, on Saturday, saying he supports a primary challenger in her re-election bid for her House seat and would remove her from the DNC if elected president.

Sanders has repeatedly accused the DNC, which is neutral in the Democratic primary, of favoring his rival, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Listen dear readers, The Gadfly is not delusional -- Hillary Rodham Clinton will be the Democrats presidential nominee, and so it's pointless to argue that reality.

But . . . . . what Bernie Sanders is doing in calling out DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz -- a fucking DINO (Democrat In Name Only) if ever existed one -- is that he's putting his progressive/liberal weight behind an effort to throw a stick in the Democrats corporate relationship wheel by dethroning one of their biggest corporate whores --- and The Gadfly is seriously sorry that Wasserman Schultz just so happens to be a woman and a political whore -- so don't give The Gadfly shit about that mkay?

But what Sanders is doing is seismic in nature. It's the long awaited shift that progressives have been waiting for since the Democrats capitulated to big money 30 years ago and forgot their fucking working democrat, minority, immigrant, liberal roots.

Listen kids --- Bernie has shook shit up. That was needed among the stale fucking Democrats. He energized the TRUE democrat base -- working people, union members, women who give a shit about their reproductive rights, African Americans, Latinos, immigration reform supporters and those who believe, as The Gadfly does, that the criminally insane oligarchs have gotten away with way too fucking much and it's long past time to rein in their ugly gluttony, and even put a few of them in fucking prison if it's possible.

Nonetheless -- it's clear Hillary will be going against Herr Drumpf and that is what this whole fucking, sordid mess boils down to. So now is the time for you dear readers to decide what kind of future you want for your kids ---

Apparently this pic is making the rounds among the short-fingered, vulgar orangutan's fan boiz base:

[ click pic to enlarge ]

Take a long, good hard look at it. Look at the depictions of the decrepit folk begging at General/Lord/Supreme Ruler Donaldo's feet. No -- really -- take a hard look.

This is not shocking to The Gadfly. Why? Because it has become undeniably clear that this is who a sizable portion of Drumpf's fan base are. You can stare at that pic and deny the evil of it to yourself until your face turns blue, but it's the fucking truth.

And if you spent as much time as The Gadfly does perusing the comments sections of conservative web sites where Drumpf is the toast of the town, you'd fucking know what The Gadfly is talking about.

It is crystal clear that these people are the new-age Brownshirts. The Gadfly has no doubts whatsoever about it. That picture does not get shared so gleefully by people who have any semblance of humanity in them. They are mentally, spiritually and morally damaged people. As such, they pose just as much, if not more (since they are already here among us) of a danger to representative democracy and this nation's future than any ragtag band of Toyota pickup driving Muslim religious nuts half a planet away.

And if it bothers you that The Gadfly has such a contemptible opinion of many of his fellow Americans, too fucking bad -- because as far as The Gadfly is concerned, their actions and behavior have proven that they are the worst of Americans, not to mention awful humans --- much more so than the "foreign hordes" who they so casually denigrate with pictures like that one.

The Gadfly does a lot of spontaneous pondering in his free time if for no other reason that he has a brain, and as such, is of the novel view that it's really quite ok to use the damn spongy thing for something other than vegetating in front of the roob tube or suppressing it's true potential by listening to religious claptrap or right wing political hooey.

Speaking of right wing political hooey . . . The Gadfly was pondering this the other day:

Washington (CNN)Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin on Friday vetoed a bill that would criminalize abortion procedures in the state.

The decision to veto the bill, which likely would have opened up the state to lawsuits from abortion rights supporters, comes at a time when Fallin is considered a possible running mate for presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump.

Forget about the Drumpf running mate conjecture crapola -- even the rotted corpses of Joseph McCarthy and Benito Mussolini are considered a "possible running mate" of the short fingered, vulgar orangutan these days.

No .. what really intrigues The Gadfly here is this penchant for right wingers to, on one hand, be of the belief that it is the moral duty of the government (when they are in charge of course) to use the power of the state to protect a zygote the size of tic-tac, but for some reason they don't believe it is the moral duty of that same government to provide for the health, education and general welfare of that zygote once it is brought to full term and is born in to the world as a flesh and blood, sentient being.

Fer' fuck's sake, even after the slaughter of nearly a couple of dozen babies in their classroom at Sandy Hook Elementary School a few years ago by a mentally disturbed freak, who had way too easy access to military style killing toys, these fucking right wing moralizers could not even bring themselves to acknowledge that this morally bankrupt country has a major goddamn problem with gun proliferation in our society.

So whenever The Gadfly sees these assholes on his teevee bemoaning the fate of the tic-tac size zygote and which compels them to try and use the power of the government to legislate the morality of the issue based on their own hypocritical religious and social views, The Gadfly usually finds himself throwing shoes, paperback books, half empty water bottles, boogers and other lightweight materials at his boob screen. It's fucking downright maddening.

The day that right wingers and pro-life religious extremists demonstrate some sincere concern and thought for living, breathing, suffering humans in the same manner that they do for the tic-tac size zygotes that preoccupy the upper echelon of their twisted moral universe, that is the day that The Gadfly will give a flying fuck what their views on abortion are.

More ponderings, on subjects far and wide, to come in future blog posts . . . whether you fucking like it or not --- dear readers... ☺

Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Sam Frizell May 12, 2016Donald Trump is considering former House Speaker Newt Gingrich as one possible option for his running mate in November, according to a source familiar with the discussions.

Trump, the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party, has been discussing Gingrich with his confidants as a potential ticket mate, a source familiar with the talks said, making the former House speaker one of the handful of options the likely Republican standard-bearer is considering for the fall.

Drumpf likes to surround himself with like-minded, like-character hacks and yes men.

Who better to be Drumpf's side-kick than a serial adulterer, deadbeat father, draft dodging, dishonest corporate lobbyist whore and shady business deal maker than ol' Newtie. Here's some well sourced material on the charming attributes that Herr Drumpf finds so appealing in the Newtster.

The Republican party has truly gone off the proverbial fucking deep end. Their collective mental, spiritual and intellectual meltdown has left them in a morbid state of being not much more than a casebook example of how ultimately doomed cults evolve and then violently perish. Let's hope, and for those who do so, pray, that there are still enough sane Americans left in this country to deny these fascist, authoritarian assholes access to the frightening power that they so desperately crave.

And if that doesn't inspire you fence-sitter and independent voters to get your wish-washy asses to the polls on election day, then maybe reading this article, written by a 28 year veteran of Republican insider politics might.

Here's a sobering excerpt:

I have written before about the GOP's contribution to anti-knowledge in our society. As Nineteenth-Century humorist Josh Billings put it, "The trouble with people is not that they don't know, but that they know so much that ain't so."

This epistemic closure, whereby facts are a matter of political opinion, threatens not only the country's future scientific preeminence, but our ability to have rational discussions about public policy. Trump's rise is a fire bell in the night warning us of a dangerous cultural development.

This nation's democracy and by virtue of such, it's future as functioning, healthy and advancing society, depends on people making their voices heard come November of this year. The Gadfly can't help you, but perhaps your god(s) can, if you all leisurely choose to ignore this precarious message.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump argued Monday that he had more foreign policy experience than "virtually anybody" seeking the presidency in response to a couple jokes President Obama made at Trump's expense.

Obama took a few jabs at the GOP frontrunner at the White House Correspondents' Dinner this weekend, joking that Trump would be good at foreign policy because he had met with "Miss Sweden" and "Miss Argentina." Trump himself opted to not attend the dinner, but his children did go.

"Right now, we have hundreds of deals being negotiated all over the world by my company, and I deal with presidents, and I deal with prime ministers. I deal with everybody," Trump said on CNN. "I probably have more experience than virtually anybody looking at this office. And I make money. I've made a lot of money doing it."

The Gadfly is so over his fellow Americans who think this reality TV charlatan is qualified to lead the world's greatest and most powerful democracy forward in to the next phase of this century.

The Gadfly is so over you dumb mother-fuckers along with the completely and definitively useless mainstream media in this country. So over all of you ....

Anyhow, apparently Drumpf equates his historically sketchy real-estate prowess and TMZ fame to true political leadership and world statesmanship ..... a thought which any sane person would blanch at and likely upchuck their most recent meal.

The Gadfly is not a Hillary fan. Not by any means on any given fucking day. But when it comes time to walk in that voting booth and pull the lever for either Drumpf or Hillary ...........

Really? .. you even have to wonder? ..............

Gadfly's advice to you all ----- turn off the fucking cable tv, turn off the fucking radio, turn off every mainstream media source that is pontificating on this sordid shit .... they are completely useless and demonstrably compromised. They serve no good and deserve no faith or trust.

Now that the vulgar, reality TV buffoon Herr Drumpf (The Gadfly will talk about that charlatan in his next post) has gleefully shoved the last few centimeters of his gold-plated, mahogany stake through Ted "Lucifer" Cruz's glossy black, Cuban heart, The Gadfly thought it would be an opportune time to mention a few things about the esteemed Senator Cruz, and his crusade to make his father's claim that he was the "anointed" one to ascend to the presidency, a disconcerting reality.

Let's face it -- America is growing up -- albeit painfully slow, and still lagging quite far behind most of the rest of the enlightened, civilized world. But it is progressing nonetheless. And with that growth comes emotional and spiritual maturity, and sharpened cognitive thinking and analytical skills, and the innate ability to empathize with other human beings. And therein lies the conundrum for Ted Cruz -- and any other conservative evangelical wingnuts who choose to follow in his U.S. presidential power seeking footsteps.

For you see dear readers - a mature, independently thinking, caring and just society simply is not very fertile recruiting ground for the kind of antiquated, judgmental and vindictive life philosophy that Cruz and his brethren religiously adhere to. The whole pathetic lot of them, are quite frankly, incrementally transforming in to relics of time in human history. They are the dinosaurs. They have reached their zenith and now all that is left is for them and their hoary old belief system to fade in to oblivion the way every other outmoded species that was incapable of adapting has gracefully done down through the ages. Although it has to be noted that Drumpf just might be the mass extinction event for the evangelicals that a massive comet was, according to many scientists, for the dinosaurs.

Bottom line is this -- Herr Drumpf and his "I am Fuck! Fuck of the Mountain!" show is who the GOP "base" wants as their standard bearer. Gadfly is ok with that. They've made their bed, now the fucking assholes have to sleep in it. As for Ted Cruz and his Christian crusade -- they are summarily shuffled off to the side where the brainiacs of their poli-religio claptrap clan can ponder what went wrong until their myopic eyeballs explode.

Sorry Ted and friends, couldn't have happened to a meaner, bunch of more uncaring and judgmental fuckers.